


Retreat

by mountain_ash



Series: Things I Write on Tumblr dot com [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Continuation, Derek Comes Back, Ficlet, Fluff, Mild Gore, Snowed In, Wolf!Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:43:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5894935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountain_ash/pseuds/mountain_ash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles and Derek's relationship has shown no signs of improvement, Lydia takes matters into her own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retreat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sickcows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sickcows/gifts).



> Originally on [tumblr](http://a-mountain-ash.tumblr.com/post/149994321105/unfortunately-i-lost-the-prompt-from)!

The cabin was secluded, peaceful, stocked with food, and utterly devoid of pack members. Utterly devoid except for Derek, that is.

“Where the hell is everyone?” Stiles asked edgily. “Lydia said she was going to get them here two hours ago.”

“Maybe the snow slowed them down.” Derek replied, his tone equally caged.

He had been back in Beacon Hills since October and when Stiles came home from college for Thanksgiving and found his father had invited him for the dinner, Derek hadn’t gotten the reception he’d expected. Stiles had all but iced him out, and since then their relationship had been abysmal. That alone wouldn’t have been the worst thing, but their teamwork had suffered as well and when a kelpie had attacked at the beginning of winter break their failure to communicate had almost lost them Mason and Corey.

“This is a fucking intervention isn’t it? Lydia set us up!” Stiles burst angrily, another half hour later. “Fucking meddler.” He finished with a mutter.

“Can you blame her?” Derek asked calmly. He wasn’t as distraught with the situation as Stiles, but he fought to hide the hurt Stiles’ anger caused him. When he’d come back he hadn’t expected the human to welcome him with open arms after such a long period of silence, but he hadn’t expected the rift to develop into a chasm either.

“Blame her or not, I’m leaving.” Stiles stood to grab his bag from the single bed he’d claimed, but Derek interjected.

“No you’re not.”

Stiles looked up at him in angered disbelief.

“You think you can tell me what to do?”

“I think the winter storm warning my cell is sending me can tell you your Jeep is going to slide off the mountain if you try.”

With a furious groan Stiles moved to stare out the window at the masses of snow that had begun falling and were already coating the roads.

“Right. Canada. Lydia had to pick Canada for the ‘pack retreat.’” Stiles whined as he quoted the air.

“Come on, Stiles.” Derek said, exasperation finally overwhelming his patience and entering his voice. “We have a beautiful view, lots of firewood, and a fully stocked fridge. What is really so horrible about this experience?”

Stiles schooled his face into as blank an expression as possible. “You being here and no one else.”

Derek’s face puckered at the harsh bite and Stiles almost regretted it, but didn’t allow the emotion to surface. After a few moments of bitter staring, Derek threw his hands up and rolled his eyes.

“Fine, Stiles. Be that way. But we’re stuck here with all the creature comforts we could want, so I’m going to make dinner. Do whatever you want, but if you even think about driving in this weather I will throw your keys so far only I will be able to find them.”

Stiles flared his nostrils at the threat but only said, “I’m going to start a fire,” before storming off.

After a half hour of struggling to coax the fire to life Stiles sat contentedly before the sparking heat, his displeasure with Derek forgotten in the task. Suddenly a plate of perfectly crisped curly fries and a burger was set before him.

“My favorite!” He said happily, forgetting in the immediate moment that he was determined to be angry with the werewolf.

“I know,” was Derek’s simple reply. The sentiment behind it startled Stiles and he looked up at the older man in hurt surprise. This was why he was angry at Derek, the man who knew so much about him but couldn’t understand how much his departure had devastated Stiles.

“Why are you doing this?” Stiles asked wearily. He was tired of these games.

Derek regarded Stiles with guarded eyes at the question. What was he supposed to say? That he’d memorized each one of the things Stiles loved and hated, cataloging them away for a day they may somehow manage to be useful? Or that every time Stiles shot him with that blade sharp bitterness it made him wish he’d not come back at all?

He’d come back for Stiles and nothing else. Not Scott, not Lydia, but Stiles, and he’d been met with so much anger that even Derek was sure he didn’t deserve the extent of it. Though he had initially hoped the vitriol would die away as it had when Stiles had first met him, it was dashed just as always. Stiles hated him more now than he had on that Thanksgiving evening and Derek’s sadistic perseverance was beginning to wear thin. The worst part was that he didn’t even know how to tell Stiles why he had returned in the first place. Words continued to fail him and Stiles wouldn’t listen long enough to give him a chance to struggle through the attempt at conveying how much the young man meant to him.

“Because we’re here and I’m tired and I want to try and figure this out.”

“Well stop trying, Derek! There’s nothing you can do to fix this and I don’t want you here. I don’t want to share that bedroom with you, I don’t want to breath the same air as you, and I didn’t want you to come back in the first place.”

Derek winced visibly. “You don’t mean that.” He got out between gritted teeth.

“Oh, I mean that. Everything is just harder when you’re here and I can’t handle it.” It was a version of the truth and Stiles hoped it read that way on Derek’s werewolf lie-detector. It seemed to, as Derek’s features crumpled at the words and Stiles wanted to take some of them back but he couldn’t bring himself to apologize. Before he could say anything more incriminating, Derek turned metaphoric tail to the door and ran, shedding his clothes as he went before fully shifting and streaking into the whiteness. Stiles watched after him, stuck in some confusing limbo between furious, mournful, and aroused by Derek’s naked form. He stood behind the window for some indeterminate amount of time before braving the snow to collect Derek’s shed clothing and placing them on the chair just outside the door.

Stiles tried finishing the barely touched meal Derek had almost lovingly prepared but couldn’t taste the food and he covered it to put in the fridge. Foregoing the bed, he pulled the comforter into the living room and fell asleep in a ball on the couch before the fire.

Derek hadn’t returned by morning when Stiles awoke at dawn, cold, cramped, and begrudgingly worried. The snow had stopped but the road was still uncleared so he bundled up, strapped on the snowshoes on the porch, and set out into the bitter cold. All footprints Derek had left were completely gone and Stiles was left with no clue where to go as he walked a ways into the woods he’d watched Derek enter. As a result he did the only thing left he could think of. He howled. He howled several times until suddenly he heard a reply and the pain in what he was sure was Derek’s voice was clear.

Stiles had no idea how to function in snow, let alone snow shoes so he staggered on in the direction he thought he should go. Eventually a small whining noise clued him in and he began hurrying. In a small clearing not much farther on, he found Derek lying in a pile of red-tinted snow, a steel trap cutting clean into his ankle. Purple fumes drifted about the trap and Stiles abandoned the cumbersome snowshoes right there to run through the deep snow.

“Derek! Derek?” He had to check but the wolf looked up at him with glowing blue eyes and he knew it was him. “Hang on. Let me call Deaton.”

Stiles fumbled at his phone with numb fingers until he heard it ringing. “Pick up, pick up, pick-”

“Hello?”

“Deaton! Derek’s been injured by a wolfsbane trap and I don’t know what to do.”

“What color are the fumes?”

“Purple. Like the normal purple.”

“Okay that’s fine. Do you have a lighter or anything.”

On every grace in existence, Stiles did indeed have a lighter in his pocket from starting the fire the night before.

“I do.”

“Okay, light it and hold it to the trap directly where it’s injuring Derek.”

“That’ll burn him!”

“He’ll heal, Stiles.” Deaton reminded.

“Oh, right.” With hands shaking both from the cold and fear, he lit the lighter and held it directly to Derek’s skin where the trap held him. The smell of burning fur and Derek’s howls filled the air and Stiles cringed as he watched the purple fumes die away. When they stopped erupting from the open flesh, he put the lighter away and read the directions to open the trap.

Derek pulled his lame leg away the second it sprang open but he didn’t change back.

“Deaton, he’s not changing back.”

“He won’t be able to until that wound heals. The full shift takes a lot out of a werewolf. Everything he’s got left is going to go into healing first. Just get him somewhere safe.”

“Thanks.”

Stiles attempted to lift Derek but that wasn’t a sustainable endeavor, so he pulled out his shoelaces and looped the snowshoes together before rolling Derek onto the makeshift sled. He turned his belt into a handle and struggled back along the path he’d come from the cabin. The snowshoes made the worst possible sled, especially under Derek’s hundred-something pounds of limp weight, and snow rapidly filled Stiles’s unlaced boots. When he finally reached the cabin an hour later, Derek had begun to wake and Stiles tugged his massive weight into the cabin to lie in front of the dead fire.

Pulling off his own frozen socks, Stiles grabbed one of Derek’s tube socks and pulled it on over his paw to keep the wound covered until he could get the fire going. He then found the uneaten burgers from the night before in the fridge and lay the plate in front of Derek’s muzzle. The wolf simply whined and pushed the plate away with his nose.

“You have to eat, Derek. You haven’t had anything in too long.”

The wolf shot Stiles the most put-upon stare he’d ever seen but then pushed himself up a bit to grab one of the burgers and gulp it down. He ate two more but left the last on the plate, pushing it towards Stiles instead. The offer reminded Stiles that he too had not eaten anything since the paltry few fries the night before and anything substantial several hours before that. Foregoing utensils he grabbed the patty and practically swallowed it down.

Stiles pulled a blanket over himself and fell back on the rug beside Derek before falling asleep to the wolf wiggling under the blanket with him. He woke a few hours later with his feet uncomfortably hot from the fire and his side devoid of the furry black creature. Sitting up slowly he looked around to find Derek sitting and reading on the couch behind him.

“You’re awake.” Derek said matter-of-factly.

“You’re healed.” Stiles returned.

Derek lifted his once injured leg and wiggled it experimentally. “Seems so.” He looked looked away for a second before turning back to face Stiles. “Why’d you come looking for me?”

Stiles took a shuddering breath before speaking. “Because you would never leave without telling me.”

“Isn’t that why you’re angry at me in the first place?”

Stiles shook his head. “No! No.” His hands shook as he considered whether or not to tell Derek the truth. “I’m angry at you because you left at all.”

Derek stopped breathing for a moment, unsure of what Stiles was trying to telling him.

“I had to leave Stiles. I couldn’t stand being there anymore.”

“Why not, Derek? That’s not a real answer.”

“Because you’re the reason I evolved, Stiles!” Derek couldn’t believe he was telling Stiles this. It was supposed to be a secret always. “When I was dying you stayed with me the whole time until I told you to go, but I didn’t know what I was sending you into and I couldn’t sit around and let you possibly die, just like you’ve never let me die. You gave my powers the spark they needed to reignite and that’s how I survived.”

“What does that mean? Why did that make you leave?”

“The full shift doesn’t just happen, Stiles. Especially for a beta. They need something…special to hold onto to make the ability surface. Someone special.”

Stiles shook his head, not willing to believe what he was being told for fear of being wrong.

“No. I’m not special. We’re not- We weren’t-” He couldn’t finish.

Derek sighed heavily and looked away into the fire. “Exactly. We weren’t. You had someone. And you were 17- in high school. I couldn’t tolerate that so I left with what I had for as long as it would last.”

“Is that why you came back? Because you and Braeden broke up?”

“That ended a long time ago. I came back because I knew you would be home. I thought I could fix things. I didn’t expect you-” He broke off, not willing to blame this on the younger man.

“You didn’t expect me to hate you so much.” Stiles finished quietly. “I didn’t hate you. I thought you abandoned me. All that time you were gone I figured it would just be great whenever you chose to come back, but then I saw you at the dinner table and something just snapped. It seemed like coming back didn’t really mean anything to you.”

“It meant everything to me.” Derek responded. “Sitting down at your table that night was the hardest thing I’ve done since leaving in the first place and nothing before that.”

Stiles stared hard at the werewolf for several seconds before taking a breath, wrapping his blanket around him, and stepping over to sit on the couch beside Derek, a small space held rigidly between them.

“Will you be at the table next year?” He asked shyly. Derek turned to him wide-eyed, a small sound of surprise falling from his lips. “Well, will you?” Stiles persisted.

“If you want me there.” Derek answered quietly, fearful Stiles would still back out.

Stiles smiled and held his blanket open for Derek to scooch under. “I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments always appreciated and come visit me on [tumblr](http://a-mountain-ash.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
